Early Afternoon - Early Summer : Rid, Virginia | East Coast Uates

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  *crackle* The crag of rubber grinding against crete echoed through the car as we carefully turned down a road so thin it could be cssified as an alleyway.

  "Huh..?" *tap-tap-tap* Pulling up the map on the dash, Diana zoomed in to double-check if we were on the right road before looking up with a fused expression. "This.. is it?"

  In front of us was a long path, just barely wide enough to fit the car, leading to a dead-end: a solid wall of dark, aged crete.

  Or at least, that's what it looked like at first gnce.

  Looking more closely, I saw that the whole wall was covered with tiny ripple-like distortions, a typical giveaway of light magic. "It's an illusion." -Although I must say it's more ving than the camoufge of a lot of monsters I've fought...-

  "A-Ah.. right... I think the doctor did mention that..." tinuing to roll up to it, Diana hastily pressed a few buttons on the dash before the faint statiing from the car's speakers vanished, and an artificial silence surrounded us.

  -Huh..?- It didn't rely on magic as far as I could tell. -How did she just...- But before I could give it much thought, our surroundings were engulfed in darkness, leaving just the bright menu on the car's dash to illuminate us. *Vwoom*

  It gave me a sensation simir to being teleported, but...

  *Vwoom* As a small wave of energy passed through the car, a smooth, matte white metal structure appeared in the darkness just ahead of us, with its walls pstered with warnings. -Looks like this is the pce...-

  Quickly tinuing into the structure, we passed through several other plex arrays of maery and magic before finally ing into a sizable room of bck metal, where blue lights embedded in the ground outlined what looked like parking spots.

  *tst-click* As we finally pulled into ohe eerie silence surrounding us disappeared, and the doors unlocked and pitched open.

  "Phew..." Diana's breath of relief was heavy. "We're in... Sorry if I didn't expin enough beforehand... The silence from that 'entraatic' was.. pretty unfortable..."

  -So that's what that was...-

  Gently pig up her helmet, she hastily tapped through the dimly lit menu on the car to disect it before the car's s fshed statid went dark. "Let's try and make this quick..."

  Hastily hopping out of the car, I followed her lead through the empty garage, eventually passing through a few more doors that appeared to be additional security checks Diana tricked with her helmet before we finally came into a reasonably sized dark room, lit only by glowing gauges, ss, meters, and the rgest of all, what could only be described as a 3D image floating over the ter of a table.

  -Is that a hologram?- At the ter of the room was a huge round table, loaded with devices and buttons I couldn't even begin to guess the use of, with a spanning, dozeer wide, colored map seemingly floating in the air.

  From what I could tell, it of the city, a colossal circur byrinth of buildings ed in t walls with exactly three massive railguns perched around its ter, which appeared to be a massive dome. -This city is gigantic...- But also on the map were hundreds of tiny pulsating dots, equidistant to one another, f sets s stretg out from the heart of the city to about fifty kilometers beyond the outer walls. -What are these...-

  The nodes were all different colors, from a dark crimson to a very pale green that appeared to be near where we were. -Iing...- "Are these dots the mana sensors?"

  Jolting slightly as I broke the silence, Diana nervously looked up from her helmet, holding a thick cable leading to an adjat table in her hands. "Y..yes, the dots are the sensors and the color corresponds to the mana level... The doctor said if you tap ohey will show the data to calcute the color, but I don't expect to be able to read it..." Finally turning back to her helmet, she resumed what she was doing. "All I was told to do was rey the numbers on those pao and."

  Is that so? Reag up aly tapping the palest dot, the map suddenly shifted so that north was the dire I was fag, and a massive panel appeared directly in front of me.

  It was almost identical to a system panel, but instead of being filled with familiar figures, there were many things I had to guess the meaning of, fr Fun', to 'System Status', each with an additional n with expandable details.

  The issue was, even after clig through them, there wasn't an obvious option to view how the color was calcuted like Diana said.. leaving o tab: 'Raw Data' -I guess I misuood, thinking it would be simplified...-

  *tap-Beep* Casually tapping the details button, a paaller than me instantaneously appeared, filled to the brim with so many words, numbers, symbols, and stantly ging formus I didn't reize that I felt like I was looking at something made by aliens. -W..what the hell?-

  Out of the thousands of values, there was almost nothing I reized, and even for the few I could ihe meaning of, I had no clue what was and wasn't sidered normal, meaning there was nothing I could learn from it all.

  However, that was only for the time being. -When that girl gets her helmet hooked up and starts giving that researcher data, I should be able to pick details out of their versation...- Although I didn't expect much, eavesdropping costs nothing, so anything would be a huge gain. -But in the meantime.. I have an idea...-

  *Woop* Gently waving my hand, the panel closed, and I turned my attention back up to the map.

  Ever since I returo Earth, I had an immense amount of energy flowing out of my body at all times. Of course, I had already suspected it was mana, but as things were, I had absolutely no clue how to trol it, and worst of all, I had no way to verify if the feeling of me moving it even did anything. -But if I use these sensors I should be able to see if I'm trolling it at all, right?-

  Although I had no experience handling mana on its own, with it being the fuel frades, I was more than a little familiar with the sensation of using it.

  The issue was simply how muergy there reviously, I would have had a small water well that the system would drop a small bucket into to then go and fuel an upgrade, however, now, simply trying to mimic that sensation made me feel like I was trying to use that same bucket to pull water out of a stormy o.

  It wasn't that I couldn't fill the bucket, but rather that I couldn't tell that it was filled, and if I simply told myself it was and moved it elsewhere, all I was doing shing the bucked bato the o some pce else.

  What I o do was either redirect the energy away from one location, or use a bucket big enough for me to feel it move.

  But both methods were substantially easier said than done.

  *Cl-Cl-k* Retrag my gloves, I turned over my worn hand and stared into my palm, where it felt like an immense flow of water was erupting from, before lookiween my fio see the light rippling as if there lume of heat around my hand, and falling into thought.

  But it didn't take long for me to remember something.

  "Ah..." -Right.. maybe I try that...- With a short breath, I closed my eyes to recall the sensation of an upgrade called 'The B'. The upgrade was said to reduce the presence of the user, but when it was activated, all I would feel was as if a ent part of my abdomen was tensing, so I hought it did anything. -Could this maing from my body be my presence?-

  Trying to partially mimic it, I slowly began tensing half of the imaginary part of my body, but almost instantly, it felt like my head litting, like I was trying to use a beaver dam to redirect a river.

  "Tch..." But with a cliy tongue, I gritted my teeth and pushed through the pain before finally opening my eyes and looking at the array of sensain. -e on...- Not seeing any difference, I reached up and gripped my head before expanding the area of the 'imaginary abdomen' I was tensing. "Ack..."

  It ain unlike anything I had ever experienced, a pletely unique pain I would sider worse than losing an arm.

  But when I finally opened my eyes again, I noticed that some of the sensor's colors in the dire I was tensing had beore vibrant, no longer looking so pale and shifting from a light green to deep e. -Ah, it.. worked..?- Finally rexing it, a loud ripple-like noise echoed through the room. *VWOOM* And the exastant I heard it, the sensors returo their old, pale colors.

  It was the opposite of what I expected.

  *Rub* *Rub* Gently rubbing my head with an eye closed, I tried to alleviate the pain that still lingered while simultaneously trying tanize my thoughts. -Okay.. so.. this energy is mana.. that mana is my presence.. and I trol it by trolling that.. thing...- Although I couldn't really describe it, it was like my body had anroup of muscles I could instinctually trol, if only slightly. -But if it's mana.. why did the senset more vibrant when I redirected my mana away from it? Shouldn't they get paler when less mana is on it?-

  I quickly sank into thought, pting if I was misuanding the sensor's colors as I held myself up oable and gripped my head.

  "Are you.. alright?"

  Hearing Diana's worried voice, I lethargically looked over to see her standing in front of dozens of massive, brightly lit ss covered in menus, images, and diagrams before waving her off. "Y..Yes, sorry..." -Looks like she's about to start...- "Don't mind me."

  Her expression quickly turned awkward. "O..Okay... I'm going to try and ect to the tower now... If there is anyone you o speak with outside of Rid, I'm sure the tower rey you to-"

  "No." I immediately shook my head. "Don't evehem I'm here..." -I 't risk them clearing the misuanding right now...-

  Tensing slightly, she gave me an odd look before slowly turning back to her helmet and finally eg to a 'unications el' through the facility's equipment.

  That was when I first heard the researcher's voice, filling the facility as he instructed Diana to do various things on the supersized puter before finally turnitention to the map of sensors.

  From there, the expnations began, starting with how to read the map itself.

  As it turned out, I was actually reading it somewhat correctly: the colors themselves ranged from white to dark red, with the vibrant red indig a potentially poisonous amount of mana for humans, while white meant all.

  The opacity, or paleness, however, was actually something totally indepe.

  "The pale readings are the ones we o worry abht now." His voice was firm, but he spoke with haste. "The opacity of the sensor's cenerally cides with the amount of aura that is messing with the sensor. It has to do with how the ruhe sensors use to detect mana ot use or detect aura.. it basically just clouds the sensor's readings and, ireme cases, even dispce the mana around the sensor and mess with the color itself. In any case, now knowing that, I need you to start by describing the patterns in opacity between the sensors, if there is any pattern at all. After that, we will look at the raw data to get specifics."

  "U..Uh..." Diana's voice shook slightly. "Where should I start..."

  *crackle* "Well, auras exude in a circle around creatures, so try and look for anything like the edge of a circle in the sensors. Like where-"

  "I-It's not that..." She paused before pressing on the map and rotating it so she could look straight down at it from above. "I see.. a full circle..." The instantly fell silent, leaving just the faint sound of static. "There's a full circle ihe city... The ter node's colors are distorted like you mentiooo... They're green while the outer ones are red..."

  There was a long silence before the researcher tinued with a quiver in his voice. "H..How many nodes are affected?"

  "H..Hundreds? Maybe more..." She sounded like she wao break down and cry. "From edge to edge, it's.. almost the width of the city... And the ter is right o where I am..."

  "That means it's.. beh the city..." The sound of frantic clig and writing instantly leaked through the as the researcher began to panic. "O-Okay," He eventually tinued in a frenzy. "I need you to download the current raw data to your helmet; si's already ected, you should be able to go to the ter sole, open the and prompt, and put in, '-adm_download_snapshot -pd Diana -pass 18erf'. It should download the current map, nodes, and their data. We hat data urgently."

  Diana, slowly beginning to panic as well, instantly ran back to the puter before frantically typing.

  "O's downloaded, break unication ao the airport! I'll tact the ATC through the facility and issue an evacuation using the still air-worthy European airship, but you o get there ASAP! Getting that helmet out of Rid o be your top priority!"

  *cl-cl-click* "W-What about my cardinal?! you not get fuel to it?!"

  "The Sergeant spoke with the local military base, but they 't move their refueling trucks at all. The mana wave was s in Rid that it killed several people and even damaged some meical equipment... For now, just focus oing the hell out of there. Now that I'm ected to the facility, I don't o rey through your helmet anymore, so go the moment the download finishes."

  "R-Roger!" *Beep* The stati the researcher's unications el instantly vanished as Diana frantically worked to unplug the helmet a moving.

  It was finally time for us to leave, but while I didn't get all the information I wanted reting to the raw data, I was more than satisfied with everything else. -Now, the issue is my presence...- *Cl-Cl-k* Closing the armor back around my hand, I idly spoke with Diana while we quickly made our way back to the car, but my thoughts were elsewhere. -If the humans find out I'm the target of the regional quest before I 'settle' things with an admin, I'll be caught in a tight spot...-

  Unfortuhough, even simply tag an administrator was going to be a struggle.

  Or at least..that's how my past experiences had been.

  *Crackle-humm* As the hum of the car's electric motors filled the aurned bato the main road, getting ready to return to the airport, a gate suddenly appeared in front of us, only maybe 3 meters wide, and a white line was instantaneously drawn through the middle of the car. *CREAAK*

  Before Diana could eveer the existence of the gate, the car was ly split in half, as if done so by a ser, and the gate dissipated to reveal a man donning bright white and silver armor with ahereal cloud-like aura around him and a golden halo over his head, pointing a bck straight-bded katana at me.

  -Well...- As my head tilted and id my cheek on my knuckles, I stared straight into his eyes. -This.. might be a problem...-

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